Day 5 (25 May) - Recap

Oops, we did it again! After rescheduling our aborted Versailles tour from yesterday to today, we got lost trying to find the tour agency office and missed the tour again. While the woman at the agency was understandably irate at our tardiness, she did thoughtfully agree to re-book us on a bike tour of Monet´s Gardens on Wednesday at a more manageable 10:40 a.m. We decided that we would not be deterred and so we went to Versailles anyway. Good choice. If you haven´t been to Versailles, there´s really no adequate way to describe it. Picture the biggest building you can imagine (not tallest, just biggest), double it, and then cover it in gold. Throw in landscaped gardens that are roughly the size of Rhode Island and I think you´re getting the picture. There is actually a town of Versailles with a lively food market and so, naturally, that was our first stop (well, second, if you count our stop for croissants and cafe). We picked up some fresh fruit and grilled chicken wings (plus beer, of course) and headed up the road to the palace. We sat and stared at the building (as well as the 16 mile long line to get in) for a while as we ate our lunch. We then proceeded to skip the line by showing our Museum Passes at a side entrance and playing stupid American ("playing") until the woman agreed to let us inside. Score! Once inside, we listened to the Rick Steves´s audio podcast tour of the royal apartments and got to see such highlights as the hall of mirrors (where I also learned that 'La Galerie des Glaces' is not a room full of ice cream), the King and Queen´s private bedrooms (they´re separated for ease of adultery), and the chapel, which would be the largest church in almost any city in the world. Then it was off to explore the gardens. On this particular day (as on most weekend days in the summer) the gardens, instead of free, were 8 Euros (or 6 for poor students like us). The extra money was because they had the fountains going (more on that later). We strolled around (and stopped for crepe), saw a water show or two, got some wine and french fries at the cafe, and hopped the train back to Paris. A quick change and we headed up to Au Lapin Agile, a 200 year old cabaret (which has probably never been cleaned or renovated) where we saw a bunch of different performers in a tiny room with about 25 French people who seemed to know all of the words to every song. Apart from having no idea what was going on (and apparently not getting any of the jokes), it was a very cool experience.